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/lit/ - Literature

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3068120 No.3068120[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Is this series worth reading?

>> No.3068129

No, the writing is awful, the plot goes nowhere and the characters aren't developed.

Read the first one if you dare and keep in mind that the other's are much worse.

I read 2 or 3 because someone told me it was great, but no. It's really bad.

>> No.3068145

>>3068129
I've heard it compared to A Song of Ice and Fire a lot. Is that a good comparison?

>> No.3068152

>>3068145
No, George RR Martin can actually write coherently.

>> No.3068191

>>3068145
It's a perfectly fine comparison.

>> No.3068275

bumpan for more opinions.

>> No.3068310

If you can get past the first book, you'll probably enjoy the series. The first, however, is a garbled fucking mess.

>> No.3068324

>>3068120

No. Just read the AD&D sourcebooks if you're into RPG campaign shit.

>> No.3068477

>>3068129
Aren't you a bucket of sunshine.

>> No.3068513

>>3068324
But that's what every fantasy book is.

>> No.3068554

>>3068145
It's a terrible comparison, and I say that as someone who likes both series.

They are both good fantasy, but they are also very different. The only thing they share is a certain cynicism.

Beyond that, A Song of Ice and Fire is mostly a low-magic affair of noble houses in a medieval-pastiche that's sort of like if England was the size of South America and had Moorish Spain as part of it, intriguing. There are hints that magic used to be a big deal, but now it isn't.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen has armies of undead neanderthals who have waged a genocidal war for hundreds of thousands of years against giants who can lock entire continents in permanent ice ages, gods interfering all over the place and being killed for it, an empire spanning continents, and grizzled soldiers who all for some reason feel like having philosophical debates on the nature of justice and reality, if they're not too hung over.

There is no equivalent to medieval europe, and at least one of the books segways into an exploration of debt-based economies and why they're a bad idea.

Also the writer is an archaeologist, and it shows.

>> No.3068572

>>3068513
>But that's what every fantasy book is.

No. Not everything that's labeled as 'fantasy' in bookstores is neckbeard RPG-campaign stuff.

>> No.3068584

>>3068572

What are some examples to the contrary that aren't utter shit?

>inb4 dan simmons, frank herbert, china meiville et al

>> No.3068608

>>3068584
The first two you mentioned are science fiction writers, you know that?

Try Ursula K. Leguin, Robin Hobb, R. Scott Bakker, Lois McMaster Bujold and Roger Zelazny.

And of course there are Michael Moorcock, HP Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, Jack Vance...

>> No.3068611

>>3068608

Leguin, Bakker, Moorcock, Lovecraft, Vance are all horrid. Hobb is decent, haven't read the rest

>> No.3068623

>>3068611
What about Glenn Cook or Guy Gavriel Kay?

I won't recommend you Robert Jordan or Tad Williams - they're good OCCASIONALLY, but you have to be the sort of person willing to read a novel because there's a really good chapter in it.

>> No.3068667

>>3068608
I second Hobb, the only fantasy author I could enjoy as someone who fuckin hates elves, dwarves, and companies of 4 ppl traveling the world to destroy crystals or beat an evil lord of doom or whatever

>> No.3068669

>>3068623
Is Otherland any good? I own it but haven't yet opened it.

>> No.3068681

Short answer: yes with a but.

The thing about Malazan is that it's so big there are things you will like and there are things you will hate. You sort of have to start reading it to see whether you'll be okay with putting up withits flaws for all the good times.

>> No.3068686

>>3068120
No, it's just awfully over the top and ridiculous.

Gods and demons are summoned like pokémon, everyone has superpowers and anime battles fill the pages

>> No.3069160

Three times have I tried to finish the first book, trying to please my pleb friend who likes the series.

Never have I succeeded.

>> No.3069174

>>3069160
>can't finish a book
>implying that doesn't mean you're the pleb

>> No.3069176

Deadhouse Gates and House of Chains are really good fantasy.

The last 3 are very poor imo.

>> No.3070234

Read the Conan books instead if you haven't.